Segmented

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW64lqpTpZw

I'm not as far as I thought I was down the road to recovery.  I wasn't really over anything; I'm just really good at forgetting for the short term, also a large part of what got me where I am.  I'm going to see a psychologist soon to see if I am a sociopath, because even though I cried my eyes out last night, there still remains something deeply hollow within me.  No, I did not always feel this callous or coagulated on the inside.  It was a recent development, though I'm not sure what exactly caused it.  Probably giving up on a lot of things that used to strongly convict me or condemn me that I needed to change them.  The thoughts that I should still do better in them are there, and even the will to do better, but the proverbial fire under my rear has been put out.

My parents told me that the minds of men are segmented and compartmentalized whereas the minds of women are one whole, like two rooms of equal size, just one is filled with boxes and the other is open, with everything connected, flowing together, etc.  This is part of what plagues me, in that I want to feel the pain that the amount of guilt I have should be inflicting upon me, but I do not.  Maybe I have emotional diabetes, where whatever causes emotion has just been so overworked that it simply cannot respond anymore when it should and starts misfiring at all the times that it shouldn't.

I guess I shouldn't feel strange about talking about secrets here that are not secret to the reader.  I was trying and succeeding not to think about the following things, but I have been reminded and now I cannot get them out.  They are what reminds me that this relationship was real, that it was good, that it was right, that it mattered when I said 'I love you' and 'I want to and am going to marry you someday.'  I already said that I am not fully convinced that it was flawed from the beginning, it was just something that Rob and Laura said, and to accept it without first putting it through my own rigorous analysis would be to fall into my same old trap of trusting other's judgment better than my own, which I need to change about myself.  But now there rages a war inside my head http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA1LAZyHVnE over when things first actually began to take a turn for the worse, and at what point were things beyond recovery, beyond hope.  I no longer think it was at the very beginning.  I still think that it would have been possible to find myself and find God when in the relationship, though it would have taken a lot more work.  Oh God...I'm falling again... crashing into the memories...of When She Loved Me... I refuse to think that this was all for naught, that it was all meaningless, that it was flawed from the beginning.  I loved you Kelly.  But I cannot love anyone else if I do not first learn to love God and love myself.  That is why I never loved you as I should, and that is why I can never love anyone as much as they deserve until that is the case.  That is the pilgrimage I am on, and it is one that is best made alone, though it may have been possible while still with you, it may have not happened for too long had that been the case.  This is the catalyst that God saw fit, and again, I have you to thank for loving me more than I could have ever loved you while I was away from God.  You had it figured out.  You knew how to love yourself, even more than I could.  You knew how to love God, more than I could, which makes my years of studying His word and being a Christian seem absolutely worthless in comparison to the genuine nature of your faith.  When I could no longer ride upon Frank's faith, it was yours that I turned to... and... maybe that's where things took the ultimate turn?  God has removed everyone close from me whose faith I had to rest upon.  You were the last link, and now I am alone... with God.  Yet another reason I would never have given you up... because you were the faith that I was starting to build my own upon.  Now that too is gone.  I must start again.  But I have to let go of everything in the way first...  Kelly, what I am most terrified of is losing your friendship, and now that things have taken a major turn for the worse when I thought everything would be relatively ok, I am in danger of you leaving me again.  Would it be easier if I left you this time?  If I ceased to call you my best friend?  I am prepared to do it at this point.  I don't want to force all the responsibility upon you as I did with every instance that I can remember with our relationship.  I want to be the strong one this time, the one that can be depended upon.  Kelly, would it help you if we were no longer friends, or at least at all of good friends as we are now?  Or would it only make things worse?  As for me... it would destroy me.  It would tear me apart.  I value you above all of my friends still, because no one else has been as worthy or has earned it, and I don't know if they ever will.  But if it will help you, I will banish myself to be with those lesser than you, save a few like Rob and Laura though whom I could never really relate to and who I always feel intimidated by and looked down upon and condemned and always expected to mess up horribly.  I never felt that from you.  You're willing to give me a chance to change myself was all that made me want to try sometimes and all that pushed me forward at times when I just wanted to cave to the bad expectations of everyone else because they were the ones making me feel hopeless.  Don't think you could never 'fix' me Kelly, you gave me the hope that I needed to even want to fix myself, meaning, you did as much as you could, and it worked in every instance that it could, at every time that another's help could have helped me, you helped me most.  This was just not one of those situations where you could have helped, but that doesn't mean you have been a failure, you just have limitations like everyone else lesser to God.

I forgot about where I was going to go with the previous paragraph.  I wanted to list all of the memories that flooded back to me just now.  All of the things to show you that I want you back (but I do not want the old me back).  There is only one thing I want more than you, and it is God.  That priority, if nothing else, is the one that has been restored to me, but I still have you (and God obviously) to thank for it...

Staying awake most of the night at Devil's Lake, alone in the car listening to the fierce rain beating against the windows, holding each other's hands across the front seat, and sharing the beginning of an adventure.

The time when I was first told that someone could not possibly think about marrying anyone else... and I agreed.  And I was convicted by it and bound to it by my own word.

Every time I said the words "I love you" and every one of the new meanings those words took on in every new context, a statement always changing, always growing and maturing.

I winced yesterday when going to check my mailbox... because I know that no one else would care enough to send me a letter filled with all of the little and big thoughts from throughout their day.  I would no longer imagine you scribbling away in class because I was on your mind.  I would no longer hang on every letter, just knowing that it was your delicate hand that penned it.

When I called you for the first time when I got down to U of I, and I was wandering lost geographically, lost mentally.  I stopped to sit by a fountain that was lit up and saw another couple and would have died to have had you there with me.

When we worked through our problems together, and when we helped each other for real.  When you helped me learn to understand my father and learn to respect him.  All of the times you gave me confidence in myself when I had none, before or after exams, whenever I needed to talk to Rob or Laura about something important but couldn't find the strength, and the many times that we sought after God together and drew closer to Him and to each other because of it.  That one time at Harvest, when Cristyn Dunteman came up behind you and started praying for you.  The times when it was just the two of us in your car, praying for guidance.  These things really happened, and they were good.  Our relationship was not hopelessly flawed.

For every time that I jumped out of bed in the morning and ran to greet the day.  I wanted to dance and sing in the sunlight because you had made me the happiest man alive that I could be, and when I had the world for me and nothing to stand against me.  I will never be able to attain that level of happiness and contentedness that I had then until heaven comes if I remain alone til then.

Every time I counseled others in relationships based upon ours and all that we were doing right, which they were not and needed to learn.

Every time we were silent together, not because we had nothing to say, but because we already knew what the other was thinking.

All of the times we helped each other through our most vicious temptations, whether it was to keep each other accountable or when we had to abstain from physical pleasures with each other because we knew that we could serve each other and God better if we did.

I no longer care if these words are making it worse for me.  You have every reason to have your wrath with me, and I will let you have it.  I loved you Kelly, and I do not want to forget that, even if it takes longer to let go.

"Why didn't you dump me the first time you were unsure?  Why did you continue pretending for so long?  Why won't you tell me now that you actually do love me and that you want me back?"

I'll tell you why, because when I was unsure (it was about your looks in this instance) for the first time, I remember exactly what was going through my head.  I didn't dump you because I thought you were beautiful. I saw directly through my uncertainties, and it was not hard to do so.  It didn't take me straining or bending over backwards to deny myself in order to be overcome with you.  At first I wasn't sure what was happening, because before going out with you I was still unsure about some things about you.  But something happened when I made my commitment to you.  You became the standard, and yes I had to adjust a little to it, but that was a small task.  I was not pretending.  It.  Was.  Real.  So when did I start pretending?  When did my standard, you, become shaken in my eyes?  If I remember correctly, it was around the time of our one year anniversary.  I remember because I know Laura and I had a conversation about it around then.  I remember what we talked about too.  We talked about how guys become afraid around their one-year, afraid of the permanence that it suggests.  It wasn't because you were insufficient Kelly, you were more than I could have ever hoped for.  I was just afraid of something immovable.  Permanence to me reminds me too much of stagnation, and I was afraid of this too.  I was afraid that we would stop growing together, that we would run out of potential together, and this is why I started trying to induce 'growth,' by trying to get us to do more things together, by trying to get you to change how you look or dress.  I was afraid that we would stop growing, I was afraid that the rest of our lives would change but that our relationship would not change with them, that it would hold both of us back rather than doing the opposite.  I was afraid, and that fear destroyed me, and then us.  These words may seem meaningless and full of contradiction, chaotic and purposeless, but however you may perceive them, it doesn't matter, their intrinsic meaning remains:  I love you.  And I want you back.  Again... Now is the time where I must love God more, and want Him back more, and so shall I do, but that does not change the fact that I still love you, and that is the only reason I will try to let you go, is because I will always love you.  You may try to forget it, but it will continue to echo until you become deaf to it, but it will still remain.